Fire
by The Bickering Kingdom
Summary: D.B's obsession to solve a case puts Finn in danger.


**Fire**

**AN rewrite of my one shot part of my frussell collection.**

The murder of Ollie Cattle keeps D.B Russell wide awake, staring up the crack in the ceiling. He tells himself one day he'll fix that crack but knows he never will. Every time he closes his eyes an image of cheeky, blonde-haired seventeen-year-old kept shifting into a lifeless body on a filthy warehouse floor. One hour it took for him to die. D.B wonders what he thought about, did he believe someone would save him?.

D.B suspected Ollie's stepbrother Jack killed him over a girl. "All's fair in love and war" was the old age proverb. If Jack had loved Lisa the way Ollie had then maybe D.B could understand why he did it but what Jack felt wasn't love; he felt entitled to her.

Finn had once told him _"If you love someone you set them free if you feel entitled to them you kill them, and if you love them and they love you but you can never have them then you torture your soul with their presence,"._

He couldn't prove that Jack had killed Ollie, and the teenager knew it. The smug smile he had flashed him as he walked out of the interview room would burn in his memory forever.

He became obsessed with proving Jack was a killer; the boy had crawled underneath his skin. For days he pushed his team to find the evidence, he had snapped at Mia. Guilt about gnawed him afterwards especially, when Finn had gotten in front of Mia. Like a mother protecting her child from a father's anger.

An intoxicating mixture of concern and anger burned in her eyes. Her cheeks burned red from unreleased rage. The team couldn't afford for both of them to lose control, to get caught up anger and obsession. A silent battle of conversations and wills broke out between them eventually submission on his part; partly because she was right, partly because it was easier to cave into her than fight.

Those thirty seconds had felt like a lifetime, but afterwards, he felt calmer.

He knew in his head that he should let the case go, but his heart went for one last try. D.B ordered Finn and Zack to go over the crime scene again to search for any evidence they might have missed.

Zack got called away to process a robbery; they should have had police there. D.B still didn't know why they weren't. He could hear her reassuring Zack, tell him she would be fine. Picture her hands on her hips when he hesitated.

Finn stayed behind, knowing that they had missed nothing at the scene the first time. Because she wanted to solve the case for him, wanted to get Jack out from under his skin and in a prison cell. The guilt of that gnawed away at his insides like a vicious rat through wires.

Finn had been working alone for an hour when someone set fire to the outside. The doors were locked outside with thick metal chains. The cost-saving materials used to build the warehouse made it burn faster. Thick orange flames covered and consumed within minutes.

D.B would never know how Finn got out without only mild smoke inhalation, but he would be grateful that she did.

His heart had stopped when he heard about the fire. It was like someone had hit pause on the world, he couldn't breathe or move until he heard "Finn is okay"; for those moments when he didn't know there were no words to describe how felt. Torn apart and destroyed from the inside felt too small of description.

D.B knew it was Jack who had started the fire not because he thought he had left evidence, but because he could. Jack's mom and aunt gave him an alibi, swore he was with them both the whole time. He knew they were lying, but he couldn't prove it. Once again, there was no evidence tying the teenager to the scene.

A cold-blooded killer who almost killed his best friend was walking the streets; he hated it. Ollie wouldn't get justice; his stepmom had chosen blood over him, and her son would kill again. There was no doubt in his mind that Jack would kill.

He had shouted at Zack, D.B couldn't stop himself. He needed to blame someone, and Zack was there. The young CSI felt bad enough about leaving Finn, blamed himself already, D.B had made it worse.

D.B would apologize when he saw him next, reassure him that the only person to blame was Jack.

Finn was still in the hospital much to her annoyance. She hated hospitals; had ever since she broke her leg at six years old.

Doctor Hamish had wanted to keep in her overnight for observation.

She had fought and pouted all the way, huffing and glaringly daggers at both him and Doctor Hamish. Finn reluctantly and with a lot of protests agreed to stay after he threatened to force her to have two weeks off work.

D.B knew even though she said she was fine that Finn wasn't. It had left shaken and uneasy. When he hugged her, she didn't pull away like she usually would have.

The smell of smoke and burning plastic clung to her skin, her usual scent of perfume, soap, and a whiff of coffee lingering underneath the smell of fire.

Even now hours later the smell of plastic and the smell of her were battling it out in his nostrils.

As he stares up at that the crack he'll never fix he thanks the universe for keeping his best friend alive and waits for the moment Jack kills again.


End file.
